A check-in at the park today found a pair of intrepid Hermit Thrushes and a lone male Yellowthroat still hanging in amid the White-throats, but no sign of last week's Woodcock, Orange-Crowned Warbler, or Catbird (which may have been a holdover from those I was told nested in the park over the summer).
My new fascination with these small urban parks has provokes a question: Having written often about the rainforest over the years, I remember when ornithologists suddenly thought to study the river islands that dot the Amazon...and found an unexpected and distinctive avifauna there. Has anyone studied the migrant and nesting bird populations at NYC's little "islands," and how they compare to the larger parks? Are the Yellowthroats, Ovenbirds, etc, just spillovers, or do some species actually prefer the smaller parks? And if so, why? Hope it's okay to ponder this here. --Joe Wallace -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
